Two incidents in West Seattle Crime Watch – first, a reader report:

BUILDING-BURGLARY ATTEMPT: The report and image were sent by Timothy:

Writing to report an attempted burglary resulting in property damage early this morning (3:50 am, 12/30). This happened on the 3700 block of Beach Dr SW.

There was a driver and at least one other person involved. The passenger, and attempted burglar, was wearing baggy, intentionally-torn, jeans with embroidered back pockets and a bright yellow, construction-style jacket. They were not wearing a mask, so clear pictures of this face are attached. Upon entering our vestibule, they begin yanking at our locked entry doors, resulting in the security glass shattering. This sent the burglar running. They were driving a white, 1998-2005 Mercedes ML class, with black aftermarket wheels. The vehicle has front-end damage including a strap holding the driver fender in place. There is a license plate attached, but it did not come through legibly on camera.

The damage to the glass, door, and locking mechanism is likely to cost $1000-2000 for repair or replacement.

STORE SECURITY GUARD SPRAYED BY SHOPLIFTER: We obtained this report from SPD today after a question from someone who saw the police response outside Jefferson Square Safeway last night, and someone getting their eyes flushed with milk. That was a store-security person, according to the report, who had been pepper-sprayed by someone that store management described as a “known shoplifter.” He sprayed the security person who approached him “with the intention of telling (him) to put back unpaid merchandise he had taken.” The victim was in pain and getting treated by SFD while the officer was investigating, so the report has no information on what was taken, but says the shoplifter was described as a “Black man, 30-35 years old, 5’7″, very thin, wearing a green jacket, green pants, a black backpack, and a plastic Safeway bag over his head.”

Three notes in West Seattle Crime Watch today:

AUTO-THEFT ARREST: Somebody called police late last night about what appeared to be an unoccupied car with major front-end damage, left on the northwest corner of California and Fauntleroy, jutting into the westbound lane of the latter. When officers arrived, they found a 31-year-old man in the car, which turned out to be stolen. The man, who refused to identify himself, claimed the car had broken down and he was waiting for help; when told the car was stolen, he claimed he had bought it from someone in the U-District, though he didn’t know their full name. Police arrested him and found he was carrying ammunition including a loaded 9mm magazine, which as a convicted felon he wasn’t allowed to possess. They also discovered in the suspect’s possession “a large amount of vehicle keys and other miscellaneous keys of various makes,” plus “a small amount of suspected crystal methamphetamine.” The car was impounded and the suspect was taken into jail, where, the report adds, he “made threats to harm officers … after he is released.” The report also notes that the suspect is on probation. Records show his record includes assault, auto theft, and burglary cases.

STOLEN CAR FOUND ABANDONED: Jeph sent this video of a car reported crashed and abandoned in Highland Park early Tuesday morning, engine running and airbags deployed:

In addition to reporting it to 911, Jeph called the phone number stenciled on the car and was told the car had been stolen Friday night from the Westwood Village Target parking lot.

ABANDONED BICYCLE: The photo and report are from Bolo:

Possible dumped bicycle?

Found near 5700 block Fauntleroy Way SW.

Bolo has already checked bike databases – no luck. If this might be yours, contact us and we’ll connect you.

2:42 PM: No holiday for vehicle thieves. Karin sent the photo and report:

My friend is a hard-working gardener and this truck is critical to his work, plus all his tools were in the truck. My friend’s truck was stolen (last night) from 14th Ave SW and SW Webster St. Please keep your eyes open for this Chevy S-10, 2003 with extended cab.License #C90201L.

Call 911 if you see it.

4:12 PM: Karin says the truck’s been found.

Kevin hopes to reunite this bicycle with its owner:

Found bike for a rider approximately 5’6” to 5’10” with the seatpost set for someone approximately 5’8”. Found Christmas Eve in the Gatewood neighborhood near 35th Avenue Southwest. Produce the key and unlock the padlock, describe the make, model and type of handlebars, brakes, and gear shifters and serial number to prove ownership.

If you think it’s yours, email us – westseattleblog@gmail.com – and we’ll connect you.

We’ve obtained the police reports on two West Seattle burglaries from last night:

MYSTERY MADE BREAK-IN: The Junction retail shop at 4312 SW Oregon was burglarized overnight – second time Mystery Made has been hit in less than two years (the previous break-in in April 2020 was in their old Admiral location). Police went there at about 12:30 am after word of an audible alarm and found a shop owner already there. The report says “signs of forced entry” included a removed pane of door glass. They showed police their video of two burglars, described in the report as “UM [unknown male], 5’9, in dark clothing with a hood and mask” and “UF [unknown female], 5’7, wearing dark clothing with a hood and mask,” spending only a few minutes inside but filling a box with thousands of dollars in merchandise and leaving, (added) Here’s some video:

HOME BREAK-IN: Less than half an hour after that police response, a 911 call came in about an “in-progress burglary” in the 5700 block of SW Charlestown. The resident said someone had forced their way in through the back door, and then left quickly, likely in a vehicle. The family dog started barking at the intruder and woke everyone up. The resident reported hearing two voices. Police looking for evidence found “wet footprints” and a phone left behind. Nothing appeared taken but a tape measure was removed from a drawer near the door, so police took that to test for fingerprints. A K-9 search didn’t get far, as the officer also surmised the burglars had left in a car. No one saw it, though, so there’s no description of it or the burglars.

With holiday-shopping season almost wrapped up, it’s prime time for car prowling – as two reader reports remind us:

*Misti reports that around 9:30 am in the QFC/Petco garage in The Junction, she startled, and possibly thwarted three men who appeared to be casing the car next to hers, “looking inside while holding a huge tool (that) looked like it could easily shatter a car window.” She had lingered in her car making a phone call and adds, “Guy right next to my window jumped about 5 feet when he saw me, he said hello then they all walked off quickly.”

*Haile reports, “Man seen for several hours today (ongoing) looking in cars and following delivery trucks on Alki in the 59th/60th and 60th/61st alleys on both sides of Admiral.”

Last month, we brought you Amy‘s story – her car was stolen from Alki, and hours later, her home was burglarized. A tip from an anonymous WSB reader helped police identify the suspect; they tried at least twice to arrest him at his North Delridge residence, but he was gone. Then Amy got word two weeks later – as reported here – that the suspect had been arrested in Nevada, trying to elude police.

We’ve since spoken to the Mineral County District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting him there, and have obtained their court documents as well as those detailing a charge filed against him here. The suspect is 28-year-old Jordan J. Edmonds – we obtained the photo at right from the Washington State Department of Corrections, taken when he was in their custody in 2018. In Nevada, deputy district attorney Jaren Stanton told us, Edmonds has agreed to plead guilty at a January 6th hearing to two felony charges – eluding an officer and unlawful gun possession. He will be sentenced about six weeks later, Stanton said. After he serves time in Nevada, Edmonds faces two felony charges here, filed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in the break-in at Amy’s house – residential burglary and second-degree identity theft. Those documents indicate Edmonds already had been charged in four other cases this year and last year – two residential-burglary cases, two unlawful-gun-possession cases. According to prosecutors, he had gotten out of jail by posting bond in all four cases (court files show $50,000 bail in a West Seattle burglary last summer), and conditions of release included not leaving this state. His criminal history includes four burglary cases – two as an adult, two as a juvenile.

Amy, meantime, says she’s continuing to work through “issues” related to the burglary but is “grateful” to the WSB reader whose tip helped solve the case. We’ll follow up next month to see what happens when Edmonds is sentenced in Nevada.

The information is from police reports we requested today, both from armed robberies on Saturday:

WESTWOOD VILLAGE ROBBERY: Police were called to the center at 11:22 am Saturday after people called 911 about one man pointing a gun at another. The victim told officers he went there for a transaction he had arranged via OfferUp, to sell “a pair of Jordan 1 low-top tennis shoes, size 10.5, for $300,” according to the police report. Two people showed up and looked at the shoes, still in the victim’s car, which the report notes also held “a pair of Jordan 1 high-top sneakers which (the victim) was not selling but valued at approximately $1,500.” The report continues, “The subjects displayed a roll of US dollar bills with a $100 displayed on the outside.” The victim said the money looked fake. Then one person shoved and hit him; the victim fought back, and a bystander jumped in to help. But while they were subduing that person, the other one “collected the pair of high-top sneakers and one of the low-top shoes and ran out of sight” – returning with a “black semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine visible,” telling the victim he’d kill him if he didn’t let go of the other person. So he did, and that person “fled to the front passenger seat of a waiting 2006-2012 light blue Nissan Altima.” One person got some photos of the armed robber and the vehicle; those have been provided to police.

GAS-STATION ROBBERY: This holdup happened at 9:45 pm Saturday night at the gas station at 5445 Delridge Way SW. Police were told a man came into the store, walked to the counter, pointed “a black .45 handgun” at the clerk, and said, “Give me the money.” The clerk complied and was told to drop to the ground behind the counter; the robber then fled on foot, southbound on Delridge.

A break-in at the vacant health-clinic building at 3400 California SW (past Swedish, future Virginia Mason Franciscan) resulted in loss/damage estimated at ~$250,000, according to the police report. We requested the report after noting a “commercial burglary” logged in the area this past Wednesday. The report says police were called to investigate on Wednesday afternoon; the burglary had happened sometime since the building was last checked a week or so earlier, possibly early that morning, when a fire alarm was activated. On Wednesday afternoon, the investigating officer was shown “areas around the building with extensive damage and removal of copper wire and plumbing. The believed method of access was the forced removal of Seattle Fire Department keys from keyboxes attached to exterior walls. Multiple boxes were removed and presumably forced open to remove the keys and gain access to the building. Ceiling panels were torn down and copper plumbing had been cut and removed. Multiple electrical panels had been torn open and wires cut and removed.” Police also noted, “It appeared the burglars were drinking from bottles of Angry Orchard cider while they were inside the clinic,” leaving a bottle behind, so that was taken into evidence to test for fingerprints.

From Vineta:

We’ve had an abandoned bike against our fence for a few weeks now, and thought it might have been stolen.

This is near 47th/Stevens. Recognize it? Contact us and we’ll connect you.

From Eric at Pegasus Book Exchange in The Junction:

I noticed (Saturday) that sports cards I have been keeping at Pegasus Books have been stolen. There are about 400 very valuable Seattle-centered cards; many Griffey, Kemp, Payton, among others like Jordan and Pippen, some hockey cards as well. I have contacted local sports-card stores and pawn shops but if you hear anything, please let me know. I was going to auction them away for charity but they must’ve been stolen sometime Thursday morning from the back room of Pegasus.

Eric has also put the word out to a wide network of sports-memorabilia dealers, but appreciates more eyes/ears – contact info is on the store website.

Two items in West Seattle Crime Watch tonight:

MACE-ATTACK SUSPECT CHARGED: On Monday, we published Chris‘s report of confronting a car prowler who sprayed him with bear mace. A suspect was arrested Monday and charged today – a repeat offender we’ve covered multiple times. 28-year-old Casey Carlstedt is charged with attempted second-degree robbery. The charging documents allege that Carlstedt “has a record of not following court orders and committed this offense while … another felony [was pending] in King County Superior Court,” so the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office asked a judge to set his bail at $50,000, and the request was granted. The documents also note:

The Defendant has an open Possession of Stolen Vehicle in King County Superior Court from October 8, 2021. The Defendant has the following criminal convictions: Violation of Anti- Harassment Order (2020), Harassment (2020), Violation of a No Contact Order (2020, 2016), Theft in the Second Degree (2016), Harassment (2017), Theft in the Third Degree (2017, 2017, 2016, 2016, 2015), Criminal Trespass in the First Degree (2017), Reckless Driving (2017), Malicious Mischief in the Third Degree (2015), Reckless Endangerment (2012), and Negligent Driving in the First Degree (2012).

We last reported on Carlstedt in the 2020 harassment cases, in which he violated an order to stay away from a certain house southwest of The Junction. Our 2020 report noted that we had “reported on him multiple times in 2017, including a prosecutor’s observation that he appeared to be ‘spiraling out of control’.” Those 2017 reports included this case, a bike theft in North Delridge, after which WSB readers helped the victim recover his bicycle and then led police to Carlstedt. This time, the court documents say, mace-attack victim Chris got tips from social media including photos that helped police identify the suspect because they’d arrested him before. They found him near the Junction Rite-Aid on Tuesday. The “open” stolen-vehicle case, by the way, involved police arresting Carlstedt October 8th after finding him sleeping in a Honda Civic three blocks away from the Junction building where it had been stolen. He was released from jail the next day; a charge of stolen-vehicle possession was filed four days after that. Before that, he had been out of jail since April, when last year’s harassment case ended with a plea bargain and a sentence that amounted to the nearly 200 days he’d already been in custody. Those documents also noted that he was expected to go into chemical-dependency treatment right after getting out.

THEFT VICTIM HIT AGAIN: One more Crime Watch note tonight – Margarita, whose food cart was stolen earlier this year, has been hit again:

Unfortunately my truck got broken into. Cracked my passenger window and stole a few hundred dollars worth of items out of the truck. I called the police. 46th and Lander. Do I have bad luck or what?! Please let our West Seattle neighbors know that the thieves are on the prowl!!!

We’re waiting to hear back from her about whether the stolen items are anything distinctive that people can watch for.